Microsoft beats Q4 cloud expectations as full-year Azure revenue tops $100 billion

Microsoft shares rose in extended trading on Wednesday after the software maker disclosed strong fiscal fourth-quarter revenue. The stock edged up 3% in extended trading.

Here’s how the company did relative to LSEG consensus:

• Earnings per share: $4.74 adjusted. That may not compare with the $4.24 adj. per share expected by LSEG
• Revenue: $90.01 billion vs. $87.62 billion expected

Microsoft’s revenue grew about 18% year over year in the quarter, which ended on June 30, according to a statement. 

Net income of $35.77 billion, or $4.81 per share, increased from $27.23 billion, or $3.65 per share, in the same quarter a year ago. Microsoft cited a $3.2 billion gain from its investment in artificial intelligence lab Anthropic and lower-than-expected costs tied to its first-ever voluntary retirement program. Meanwhile, its Xbox gaming business received an impairment charge.

As of Wednesday’s close, the software maker’s shares have given up 19% so far in 2026, while the S&P 500 index has gained about 7%.  Investors have squeezed longstanding software stocks this year, acting on fears of disruption from generative artificial intelligence models.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is confronting “some concentration risk” with its OpenAI relationship, especially with the ascent of open-source models, Deutsche Bank analysts, who recommend buying Microsoft stock, said in a note last week. Microsoft said in January that around 45% of its $625 billion in commercial remaining performance obligations were tied to OpenAI.

When it comes to allocating computing capacity, CEO Satya Nadella has been trying to balance the needs of the Azure cloud, research and applications such as the Microsoft 365 Copilot assistant. If researchers get ahold of more AI chips for model training, that means fewer will be available for cloud clients.

The company said commercial remaining performance obligations, a measure of unearned revenue and unrecognized revenue, increased 8% to $678 billion from the previous quarter. Sequential growth was driven by commitments from clients other than AI model developers, Microsoft said.

Capital expenditures and finance leases for the quarter, at $41 billion, jumped 69%. Free cash flow, at $19.64 billion, plummeted 23%.

Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud segment featuring Azure posted $39.31 billion in revenue, up 31.6% year over year and more than the $38.16 billion consensus among analysts polled by StreetAccount.

Azure growth accelerated to 43%, or 43% at constant currency, compared with 40% in the prior quarter. Analysts polled by CNBC and StreetAccount had been looking for 40% and 40.2% Azure growth at constant currency.

Microsoft said Azure revenue in the 2026 fiscal year exceeded $100 billion for the first time. At that size, the business trails Amazon Web Services while remaining larger than Alphabet’s Google Cloud.

The Productivity and Business Processes segment, which includes Office, Dynamics and LinkedIn, produced $37.85 billion in revenue, up 14.3% and above the $37.19 billion StreetAccount consensus.

The company pointed to over 30 million paid seats for the Microsoft 365 Copilot work assistant. There were over 20 million as of July.

Microsoft’s More Personal Computing segment, containing Bing, Surface, Windows and Xbox, contributed $12.85 billion in revenue, which was down 4.4% and higher than StreetAccount’s $12.17 billion consensus.

The company said sales of devices and Windows licenses to device makers were down 7%. Technology industry researcher Gartner estimated that PC shipments declined 4.2%.

During the fiscal fourth quarter, Microsoft introduced a cost-efficient AI coding model, picked LinkedIn executive Dan Shapero to take over the business social network and lowered Xbox Game Pass subscription prices.

Executives are scheduled to discuss the results with analysts and issue guidance on a conference call starting at 5:30 p.m. ET.